Cuba and America: The End of an Estrangement

The Cuban flag waves over the country’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., which opened on Monday.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AP

The reëstablishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba on Monday puts a formal end to more than a half century of estrangement between the two countries. The standoff is distinct in American history for its length, its passion, and its degree of symbolism, pitting a global superpower and bulwark of capitalism against a small island nation that has been an icon of anti-Americanism—and which has never renounced its adoption of Communism. Fifty-four years into their long standoff, both nations have won, in a sense, and both have lost, too.

When the flag was lowered on both diplomatic legations back in January, 1961, the Cold War was at its apogee (it was a mere twenty-one months before the missile crisis), and millions of people around the world still believed that, very possibly, the Soviets, not the Americans, would win the races they had before them—the arms race, the space race (Sputnik was launched in 1957), the race for global hegemony. Nowadays, pretty much everyone acknowledges that, whatever else happened in the Cold War duel, it was the U.S. political and economic model that won the big race—and the others, too. The former U.S.S.R. is now a scattershot mosaic of nations. Russia itself, in the age of Vladimir Putin, is a much-reduced actor on the world scene, one that has come to behave lately with embarrassing obstreperousness, something like the ex-husband who, having been thrown out by his wife, refuses to leave his provisional encampment on the front lawn, yelling abuse at passersby and occasionally beating up a visitor.

Twenty-five years ago, when Communism collapsed and the U.S. emerged as the sole superpower, however, Cuba saw little choice other than to carry on as it had. Under the obstinate leadership of Fidel Castro, it did precisely that. There was a price to pay for his last-ditch attempt at go-it-alone sovereignty, in the form of prolonged economic penury and a continuing lack of many civic freedoms—and, collectively, the Cuban people paid that price. For the past three years or so, under the leadership of Fidel’s younger brother, Raúl, Cuba has abandoned some of the more intransigent positions adopted. Cubans today can travel far more freely, open small businesses, and buy and sell cars and property. There are some obvious contradictions in this volte-face, but for now most Cubans are not bothering to question them too deeply. They are breathing more easily, and are better prepared, too, for the kind of opening that the restoration of relations with the United States appears to signify.

So, did Cuba win? Cuba’s Communism—or Fidel’s version of it—failed economically, no doubt. But the case might also be made that Cuba won its long face-off with the United States. Diplomatic relations are being restored while one of the Castros is still in power, and with the Communist Party still the only authorized political party in Cuba. When Barack Obama announced his intention to restore relations with Cuba on television, on December 17th, as well as his intention to do away with the economic embargo, in place since 1962, he said that U.S. policy with regard to Cuba had “failed.” This admission was not only a statement of fact but a gesture from the leader of a mighty nation acknowledging the standing a smaller foe had earned.

As Benjamin Rhodes, the deputy national-security adviser and one of Obama’s point men during the secret negotiations with the Cubans, said recently, Obama’s handshake with Raúl Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, in December, 2013, turned out to have been a watershed moment. Rhodes said that the Cuban negotiators he later met with told him that Obama’s gesture had greatly impressed them, and convinced them to move forward in a rapprochement with the U.S., saying, “Your President treated us with respect.”

We are in an age when, in the Middle East and elsewhere, the United States has had to grapple with the appalling consequences of some of its more egregious geostrategic mistakes. In return, it has also had to accept a diminished role in certain aspects of the world’s affairs. In that context, Obama’s decision to find a way forward with Cuba was not a sign of weakness, but of strength.

Jon Lee Anderson, a staﬀ writer, began contributing to the magazine in 1998. He is the author of several books, including “The Fall of Baghdad.”